ScienceDaily: Top News

Insects beware! This west coast plant wants to eat you

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 01:27 PM PDT

The delicate stalk and pretty white flowers of Triantha occidentalis may seem like the perfect place to perch if you're an insect, but get trapped in its sticky hairs and it will suck the nutrients from your dead corpse.

Drug-resistant bacteria found in the guts of lemurs who live around humans

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 01:27 PM PDT

Researchers have found evidence for antibiotic resistance in the gut microbiomes of lemurs living close to humans. The more human contact they have, the more antibiotic resistance there is. Even captive animals who have never been administered an antibiotic carried the resistant microbes.

Global ocean warming started later in the 20th century than previously estimated

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 01:27 PM PDT

In estimations of ocean heat content -- important when assessing and predicting the effects of climate change -- calculations have often presented the rate of warming as a gradual rise from the mid-20th century to today. However, new research could overturn that assumption, suggesting the ocean maintained a relatively steady temperature throughout most of the 20th century, before embarking on a steep rise. The newly discovered dynamics may have significant implications for what we might expect in the future.

Why middle-class residents want to stay put after floodwaters recede

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 11:41 AM PDT

Flood disasters like Hurricane Harvey lead some people to move far from the places they had called home. But a new study finds that middle-class people who made long-term plans to stay in their neighborhoods before they flooded are less likely to relocate even if they suffered significant damage.

New study offers insight on how resistance training burns fat

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 11:41 AM PDT

Findings from a new study add to growing evidence that resistance exercise has unique benefits for fat loss. Researchers found that resistance-like exercise regulates fat cell metabolism at a molecular level.

New technology paves way towards personalized antibiotic therapy

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 11:41 AM PDT

Researchers have developed a method for monitoring bacterial responses to antibiotics in health-care settings that opens the door to personalized antibiotic therapy for patients. Using microwave sensing technology researchers have developed a low-cost, contactless, portable and reusable microwave sensor that acts as a fast and reliable evaluation tool for measuring antibiotic resistance.

Growing evidence of vitamin K benefits for heart health

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 11:41 AM PDT

New research has found that people who eat a diet rich in vitamin K have up to a 34 percent lower risk of atherosclerosis-related cardiovascular disease (conditions affecting the heart or blood vessels).

Physical activity protects children from the adverse effects of digital media on their weight later in adolescence

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 11:41 AM PDT

Children's heavy digital media use is associated with a risk of being overweight later in adolescence. Physical activity protects children from the adverse effects of digital media on their weight later in adolescence.

Microplastics: A trojan horse for metals

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 11:41 AM PDT

The fact that microplastics can accumulate organic pollutants from the environment and transport them has been known for some time. What is new, however, is that metals can also be transported in this manner. In addition, the smaller the particles, the greater the metal accumulation on the plastic.

Overcoming the limitations of scanning electron microscopy with AI

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 11:40 AM PDT

A team develops a highly efficient super-resolution imaging based on deep learning.

Unlocking the AI algorithm ‘black box’ - new machine learning technology to find out what makes plants and humans tick

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 11:40 AM PDT

We all have an internal clock but what makes us tick? Scientists have developed new artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technology to understand how gene expression regulates an organism's circadian clock.

Shift away from earthen homes ‘environmentally damaging’

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 11:40 AM PDT

Attitudes to earthen homes need to change to prevent millions of them being replaced by buildings made from more environmentally damaging materials, warn scientists. The researchers found that the usual rule-of-thumb estimate for the number of people worldwide living in earthen homes is way out of date, dropping from about one in three people to one in every ten or 12 people.

Brain connectivity can build better AI

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 11:40 AM PDT

By examining MRI data from a large Open Science repository, researchers reconstructed a brain connectivity pattern, and applied it to an artificial neural network (ANN). They trained the ANN to perform a cognitive memory task and observed how it worked to complete the assignment. These 'neuromorphic' neural networks were able to use the same underlying architecture to support a wide range of learning capacities across multiple contexts.

Climate change ‘double whammy’ could kill off fish species

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 11:40 AM PDT

New study of 150 million years of fish evolution provides first evidence to support scientific theory that commonly-eaten fish species will become smaller as waters warm under climate change. However, it reveals unexpected finding that they will also produce fewer new species, meaning they will be less able to move to more suitable environments and to adapt through evolution, as the planet warms faster than ever.

Researchers design 3D kirigami building blocks to make dynamic metamaterials

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 11:40 AM PDT

A new approach to producing metamaterials draws on kirigami techniques to make three-dimensional, reconfigurable building blocks that can be used to create complex, dynamic structures. Because the design approach is modular, these structures are easy to both assemble and disassemble.

Salt marsh resilience compromised by crabs along tidal creek edges

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 11:40 AM PDT

Coastal marshes are vulnerable to erosion caused by rising seas, pounding waves, and tidal flows. In California's Elkhorn Slough, these vulnerabilities are made worse by superabundant crabs found at their highest densities along the estuary's tidal creeks, according to a new study.

Green hydrogen: Why do certain catalysts improve in operation?

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 11:40 AM PDT

As a rule, most catalyst materials deteriorate during repeated catalytic cycles – they age. But there are also compounds that increase their performance over the course of catalysis. One example is the mineral erythrite, a mineral compound comprising cobalt and arsenic oxides. Erythrite lends itself to accelerating oxygen generation at the anode during electrolytic splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen.

Microbes turn back the clock as research discovers their potential to reverse aging in the brain

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 09:22 AM PDT

Research introduces a novel approach to reverse aspects of aging-related deterioration in the brain and cognitive function via the microbes in the gut.

Exotic matter is in our sights

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 09:21 AM PDT

Physicists have created a new way to observe details about the structure and composition of materials that improves upon previous methods. Conventional spectroscopy changes the frequency of light shining on a sample over time to reveal details about them. The new technique, Rabi-oscillation spectroscopy, does not need to explore a wide frequency range so can operate much more quickly. This method could be used to interrogate our best theories of matter in order to form a better understanding of the material universe.

How wildfire restored a Yosemite watershed

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 09:21 AM PDT

Despite the risk, allowing lightning fires to burn in Yosemite's Illilouette Creek Basin has brought undeniable ecological benefits, including boosting plant and pollinator biodiversity, limiting the severity of wildfires and increasing water availability during times of drought. These benefits are likely to make the forest more resilient to the warmer, drier conditions brought by climate change. Paired with prescribed burning and forest thinning, the practice could help make the Sierra Nevada more resilient to wildfire.

Innovative coating for blood vessels reduces rejection of transplanted organs

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 08:28 AM PDT

Researchers have found a way to reduce organ rejection following a transplant by using a special polymer to coat blood vessels on the organ to be transplanted. The polymer substantially diminished rejection of transplants in mice when tested. The discovery has the potential to eliminate the need for drugs -- typically with serious side effects -- on which transplant recipients rely to prevent their immune systems from attacking a new organ as a foreign object.

Bio-inspired, blood-repelling tissue glue could seal wounds quickly

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 08:28 AM PDT

Engineers have designed a strong, biocompatible glue that can seal injured tissues and stop bleeding, inspired by the sticky substance that barnacles use to cling to rocks.

Climate change widespread, rapid, and intensifying: IPCC

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 08:11 AM PDT

Scientists are observing changes in the Earth's climate in every region and across the whole climate system, according to the latest IPCC Report. Many of the changes observed in the climate are unprecedented in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years, and some of the changes already set in motion -- such as continued sea level rise -- are irreversible over hundreds to thousands of years.

Why people snub their friends with their phone

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 07:59 AM PDT

Smartphones have made multi-tasking easier, more understandable, and at times compulsive. But in social settings, these devices can lead to a form of contemporary rudeness called phone snubbing, or phubbing, the act of ignoring one's companions to pay attention to a phone.

New CRISPR/Cas9 technique corrects cystic fibrosis in cultured human stem cells

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 07:59 AM PDT

Researchers corrected mutations that cause cystic fibrosis in cultured human stem cells. They used a technique called prime editing to replace the 'faulty' piece of DNA with a healthy piece. The study shows that prime editing is safer than the conventional CRISPR/Cas9 technique.

Neurons that respond to touch are less picky than expected

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 07:58 AM PDT

Researchers used to believe that individual neurons were precisely tuned to respond to distinct types of touch. By studying rat whiskers, a team now finds that nearly all primary touch-sensitive neurons respond to an extensive range of motions and combination of motions and forces.

Birds’ eye size reflects habitat and diet, may predict sensitivity to environmental change

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 07:58 AM PDT

A new study shows the eye size of birds can reveal broad patterns of their biology and behavior, including where they live, what they eat and how they hunt, providing a potential roadmap for future conservation efforts.

Small stars share similar dynamics to our sun, key to planet habitability

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 07:58 AM PDT

Scientists show that 'cool' stars like the sun share dynamic surface behaviors that influence their energetic and magnetic environments. Stellar magnetic activity is key to whether a given star can host planets that support life.

Study identifies molecule that stimulates muscle-building in humans

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 07:05 AM PDT

In a randomized control study of 10 healthy young men, researchers compared how consuming the single amino acid leucine or its two-molecule equivalent, dileucine, influenced muscle-building and breakdown. They found that dileucine boosts the metabolic processes that drive muscle growth 42% more than free leucine does.

Graphene binds drugs which kill bacteria on medical implants

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 07:04 AM PDT

Bacterial infections relating to medical implants place a huge burden on healthcare and cause great suffering to patients worldwide. Now, researchers have developed a new method to prevent such infections, by covering a graphene-based material with bactericidal molecules.

Researchers find a ‘fearsome dragon’ that soared over outback Queensland

Posted: 09 Aug 2021 07:04 AM PDT

Australia's largest flying reptile has been uncovered, a pterosaur with an estimated seven-meter wingspan that soared like a dragon above the ancient, vast inland sea once covering much of outback Queensland.

Starving pneumonia-causing bacteria of its favorite 'food' holds promise for new antibiotics

Posted: 06 Aug 2021 12:58 PM PDT

Researchers have revealed how the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) obtains the essential nutrient, manganese, from our bodies, which could lead to better therapies to target what is a life-threatening, antibiotic-resistant pathogen.

Uncovering fragmentation differences in chiral biomolecules

Posted: 06 Aug 2021 10:14 AM PDT

New research published in EPJ D combines mass spectroscopy with a range of other simulation and analytical techniques, allowing researchers to distinguish between two chiral forms of a dipeptide biomolecule.

Understanding the ionization of proton-impacted helium

Posted: 06 Aug 2021 07:45 AM PDT

In a new study published in EPJ D, researchers have clearly identified particular areas where discrepancies arise between theoretical and experimental measurements of helium ionization by an impacting proton.

Using particle accelerators to investigate the quark-gluon plasma of the infant universe

Posted: 06 Aug 2021 07:43 AM PDT

A new special edition of EPJ Special Topics brings together several papers that detail our understanding of Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) and the processes that transformed it into the baryonic matter we around us on an everyday basis.